Enemy in My Memories

I received a Christmas card from an old boyfriend a couple of days before the holiday.

With the current state of affairs with my at-present boyfriend, it was a welcome little jolt in the heart. Knowing that someone is thinking of you, especially someone with whom you have a few happy memories, can bring a person that frisson of warm/fuzzies one often needs.

But, as so often happens with me, my natural sensitivities start buzzing. The part of my brain that usually assures me goes eerily silent, and the mosquito-whine of my self-defense system starts its incessant needling to "Investigate!"

First: Why is he writing to me? I haven't heard from him in, oh....ten or more years. He married a year or so after he broke up with me, to a woman with two small children. Did he get divorced?

Second: Was I the only ex he wrote to? If he got divorced, he probably whipped out the ol' little black book and bought a roll of stamps and a cheap box of twenty X-mas cards to do his mass mailing. Hey, if you're going to go fishing, might as well set a few lines instead of just one, right?

Third: Do I write back? Hey, wait a minute, how the hell did he get my new address? The card was NOT forwarded, he WROTE it on the envelope in his own handwriting (which I should have analysed, I usually do this with handwriting examples of men I have dated or might date.) and I do not post my address online; hell I've Googled myself, and I'm barely a blip on the Internet.

So, now my alarm system is on full alert, shrieking, lights flashing, stentorous tones calling out "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!!!"

I'm no hermit, but I sure as hell don't give anyone my home address online, who needs stalkers?

Anyway, alarms, flashing lights, yadayada, and I decide to try Googling this person, just in case I can find out if he has a MySpace or Facebook page. After .0018 seconds, Google slaps up the answer I never expected: Georgia Sex Offenders Registry, with this guy's name and mugshot larger than life, dirtying up my view screen. Let me tell you, there is NO WAY I was expecting this.

Let me tell you about "George" (not his real name, not because I care whether or not he is looked down on in derision, but to protect myself). George helped me forget my abusive ex-husband. He wasn't comfortable dating me openly because I was still legally married, although legally seperated pending a divorce. We kept things quiet-ish, but were together daily. I didn't live near my soon-to-be-ex, but since "George" and I worked in the same organization, we felt it would be safer for us both to keep things under wraps. He was gentle and comforting, long-suffering of my alcohol fueled rages and fits of emotional instability. I rattled his cage, beat his chest in fury, screamed my hatred of the ex at him, and he took it with more grace than I had ever shown. He rarely cursed, would chastise me for saying G-D Damnit, and would hit the wall instead of me when I pushed him too hard. I felt safe, loved and cherished with him.

But eventually, I was too much for him. I drank to dull the pain of abuse, I drank to loosen up, I drank to be funny, sexy, desireable....I cheated on him to prove to myself I could have anybody I wanted. He cheated on me because he needed a woman who wouldn't terrify him. I threatened suicide, I cried, begged, promised, lied, haunted, stalked, threatened, fought and did everything wrong. In the end, he told me to just leave him alone. He said he loved me, but I was not ready to be with anyone. He told me he'd met someone stable and wanted to give her an honest try. I was devastated. He married her the same year.

I left the job and moved back to my home state, to be near my family, to recuperate, to heal.

Okay, that's me, let's get back to him...and to be honest, I did call him at work for another couple of years after I left, because we were friends of an odd sort. He'd tell me what was going on, but not too specifically, except a couple of times, when he would say that his wife was always leaving town on business and that their sex life wasn't going too well. After 1998, I didn't talk to him again. I had moved on. In the meantime, his life must have taken some bizarre twists and turns, because he became a rapist of his own stepdaughter, and arranged to have his wife killed or harmed.

I researched his court records, read the transcripts and was horrified. He is registered as a sex offender in Georgia, out of prison after serving only eight of fourteen years. His stepdaughter was only five years old at the time of the rapes. Her own brother had to testify in the case. Her mother must have felt so helpless, so ashamed, so betrayed, so scared. This child may eventually forget the particulars, but will always know a man she once trusted, who raised her as his own from infancy, took advantage of her sexually. He hurt her small body, took away that which she could never regain, used her to slake his own perverse, animalistic urges and destroyed her peace of mind.

And I used to love this man.
I used to touch his body, kiss his face, hold my ear against his chest to hear his beating heart.
I used to pour out my soul and my tears to him as he held me tight to himself.
I used to trust him to protect me against others and myself.
I used to wonder at his patience and gentleness with me.
Now I wonder at this ugly scar that snakes red and raw across my psyche.

Why would he contact me? Didn't he think I might research him? Does he want me to believe he was framed and blameless for these morbid crimes? Would he admit his guilt and ask me for forgiveness?

I'll probably never know the answers to those questions because I can't allow myself to contact him in return. The danger is there, stalking outside my comfortable world, tail thrashing, teeth gnashing, pissing all over the flowers, digging up the garden.

Whatever happened, I can't change it. I wasn't responsible, I wasn't able to intervene, I wasn't there to know what happened. These are the things I have to repeat over and over to keep my mind whole, because I do blame myself. It might have gone differently between George and me if I had been stronger, more mature, more sober. He could have married me. He could have felt loved enough by me, not ever feeling the urge to look for physical gratification by taking it from a child.

But it isn't my fault, and I couldn't have changed the way things were going. Things happen exactly the way they will, for reasons that have no reason.

I hope he gets the help he needs to change. I hope the child he raped forgets enough of it to live a full and healthy life. I hope her mother finds peace and assurances to calm her heart.

I hope the nightmares go away soon.